Stolen for the Alien Prince

by Leslie Chase

  A sheet of hullmetal tore free as I leaped out of the engine room, nearly crushing me. Shards of glass from the princess's dining set filled the common room, whirling like a deadly swarm in the vacuum and slicing my skin as I barreled through them. There was no time to worry about the damage they were doing, I just had to hope that it wasn't permanent.

  The Darkfang wasn't set up for a planetary assault, but some parts of her never changed. My armored attack suit was waiting for me in its niche beside my cabin and I slammed myself into it with a desperate rush. The suit folded closed around me, air pumping as it gripped me tight.

  I'd deployed in a hurry before, but never alone like this. Usually there would be at least a dozen of my fellows leaping into the void beside me as I went, and I missed their camaraderie. At least I wasn't going into a fight, because there was no time to run through the checklist. Half a dozen warning lights glowed in the display as I powered up too fast. No point in worrying about them — unless I put some distance between me and the collapsing ship, I was dead anyway.

  Hitting the emergency eject button, I felt myself crushed into the suit by the sudden thrust. I could barely breathe against the acceleration, and I knew that a human would have been killed. That was why I hadn't simply sent Immorata out in the suit and hoped for the best.

  The thought of her falling towards the planet below made my hearts ache strangely. The pain had been there the whole time, I realized, just hidden beneath my focus on getting things done. Now that I had the time to pay attention to my emotions, I finally noticed that I was terrified.

  Not that I might die. I'd faced that danger often enough to know it well and not be fazed by it. But the thought of my human mate dying was something that my mind shied away from. I'd lost comrades in battle before, yes, and mourned them. That was nothing like the stabbing pain that I felt at the thought of losing her.

  I tried to tell myself it was because of the importance of my mission, but I knew that was a lie. It was far simpler than that, and far deeper.

  The assault suit's rockets disengaged, giving me back control. I was clear of the ship, far enough away that no explosion would reach me, and on a course down to the planet. That wouldn't do, though. Taking the flight controls, I pulled up and switched on the sensors. A combat suit wasn't designed for search and rescue, but it would have to do.

  The first thing it detected was the debris of the Darkfang, an expanding cloud behind me. The second was the scanners of a half-dozen different ships, all looking at the wreck. Perhaps they were trying to help, more likely they were hoping for valuable salvage, and either way none of them were close enough to assist me. Whatever happened to Immorata and myself would be over before anyone else arrived. At least it meant that the planet had a spaceport of some kind, somewhere we might be able to find transport to Achera rather than having to wait for rescue.

  But that was a distant problem, one for after we'd survived planetfall. No point in thinking about it now.

  There! A faint return on the outer edges of the planet's atmosphere showed me where my princess was. Far away, almost too far, and dropping alarmingly quickly. Once she started catching the atmosphere, she'd burn up fast. Did I have time to reach her before that happened?

  I turned the suit in that direction and hit the rockets, heedless of the loss of fuel. If I couldn't catch up with her, it didn't matter how much fuel I saved. I'd just have to hope that there was enough left to land us safely.

  As I closed, the emergency communicator in her survival pod recognized my signal and connected us automatically. Activating the channel, I was greeted by a string of quite un-princesslike profanity and had to smile. It seemed that when she thought no one was listening my princess could swear like a trooper. A strangely endearing trait.

  "Fucking damn it I don't want to die like this, how the fuck do I control this—"

  "Princess," I interrupted, and it was impossible not to savor the shocked silence my interruption brought. Her little gasp combined outrage and relief, and I pressed on before she could recover. "Princess, do exactly as I say, and we will get out of this alive."

  "What's happening?" she demanded. I should have known that the shock wouldn't make her cooperative.

  "Someone planted a bomb in your luggage and tried to kill us," I said, explaining as quickly as I could. "Unless you are quiet and do as you're told, they may still succeed."

  My princess started to speak and then I heard her teeth click shut. Good, she was taking in what I was telling her. A moment's silence and I continued.

  "There is an icon in your display, a red circle broken into six segments. Look at it and blink twice. That will deploy your force screen."

  A moment later her icon on my display was circled in red. I could breathe easier — the force screen wouldn't protect her through a landing, but it bought me some time to reach her.

  "Good. Now look for the armor icon." I tried to think how to describe it. "Two overlapping circles."

  Static hissed over the channel and I could see her force screen start to glow as she entered the atmosphere. Snarling, I pushed the throttle further. I had to reach her before it was too late. My suit's warning lights burned bright, warning me of insufficient fuel. I ignored them — this would either work or not, I'd worry about fuel afterward.

  The princess was close enough to see with my own eyes now, not just on the sensors. A red glow shone around her, the force screen impacting on the thin air. Nearly there, I thought, angling in as my hearts pounded. This would be a dangerous maneuver to try with an experienced pilot, and I was going to have to do it with a princess who never learned the first thing about space.

  Greater challenge, greater glory, I reminded myself, and laughed. That was fine to say when it was only my own life on the line.

  "What's so damned funny?" the princess snarled into the link. I could see her twisting in the bubble of her screen, the field close to collapsing. There was fear in her voice, underneath the anger.

  Rather than answering, I hit the jets again, coming up behind her and slamming into the survival suit. My armored assault suit hit her hard enough to knock the air out of her lungs, and I'd probably have broken a few bones if her suit hadn't braced her. But we caught hold of each other, falling together towards the planet below. My armor's force screen merged with hers, reinforcing it and keeping us safe for the moment.

  For the first time I looked at the terrain we were headed for, looking for a place to land. Ocean would be bad, mountains worse — at sea we'd drown eventually, hitting a cliff would kill us outright. Using up precious fuel, I angled us down towards what looked like plains and hoped that the ground was soft.

  My princess tried to tell me something, but she couldn't get the breath to speak. As the air burned around our suits, I pulled her around so that we could look each other in the eyes. To my surprise, she wasn't panicking. Scared, yes, but she looked at me with a determination that I could only admire. I smiled at her, trying to project confidence as I held her tight.

  The temperature inside my suit was rising and alarms sounded in my helmet, loud and discordant. I shut them off — they weren't telling me anything I didn't know. There was no longer enough fuel to pull up from this landing, and the angle of approach was too steep for safety. The suit wasn't happy with my chances of surviving the impact.

  It didn't matter. As long as I could cushion Immorata's fall, I'd have done my duty. Making sure that she got down safely was what mattered. I routed all the armor's power to its force screen and hoped that would be enough.

  "Hold on tight," I told her. "The landing will be rough."

  She shouted a response, drowned out by the roar of the wind around us. It wouldn't be long to impact now.

  I took a deep breath and looked into her helmet, trying to fix her face in my mind's eye. If I didn't make it through this, at least I'd die knowing I was saving her. That would be enough.

  7

  Hope

  Falling from orbit sucks. The most terrif
ying minute of my life passed as I clung to a heavily armored alien and we fell into the atmosphere. Around us the air was on fire and all I could see was Xendar, lit in the red glow of our reentry.

  His expression was almost serene as he fell backward, staring at me intensely. I wished I had his calm, but my mind was spinning out of control as I stared into his eyes.

  The crash came as a surprise, and I don't remember much. A terrified tumble through the air, impacts sending us spinning, tree branches smacking into our suits. Despite the thick skin of the survival suit each hit jarred me, and I knew that without the armor I'd be smeared across the landscape. Finally, it was over and we came to rest in a furrow we'd gouged into the ground. By the time my breathing calmed and I could focus again, we'd tumbled for miles.

  Everything hurt. I couldn't move. The air tasted funny. And outside, something was on fire.

  Blinking against the tears of pain, I tried to sit up. No effect. Tried to move my arms. Nope. Tried to turn my head.

  That worked, but the helmet stayed put. Great, the suit wasn't moving. That was, admittedly, better than being paralyzed, but it wasn't great.

  "Xendar?" No answer. "Xendar, are you okay?"

  I could, just about, make out his armor. It was glowing a dull red and steam hissed off it. Swallowing, I tried to ignore the possibility that he was dead, cooked alive inside the suit or pulverized by the impact with the planet. He'd taken the brunt of the re-entry — if I survived this, it was down to him.

  And if he was dead, it was my fault.

  Shut up, Hope, I told myself fiercely. This isn't the time to worry about that. First, I had to get free. But how?

  "Suit?" Would it answer me? I didn't know, and I felt silly trying, but I couldn't think what else to do. "Um, status report?"

  Static crackled in the helmet and then, to my immense relief, the suit answered. "Suit functions severely impaired. Battery depleted. Force screen overloaded. Armor locked. Internal atmosphere contaminated."

  It continued, a litany of faults most of which meant nothing to me. I tried to move again, but the suit wasn't bending at all. Reentry seemed to have welded its joints shut.

  "Let me out," I said. No response. Of course it wouldn't be that simple. Icons flickered in the helmet and I tried to work out which of them might be the release switch. What was the armor one again? The two overlapping circles?

  I focused on that icon as best I could and blinked. Immediately the suit relaxed around me, and I drew in a deep breath as I rolled onto my back. Above me the sky was a strange, greenish-blue. Not like Earth's at all. I was on an alien world. For the first time that really registered, and I laughed as I forced myself to sit up.

  The suit melted into viscous liquid, its internal lights flickering out as I pulled myself free of it. Once I was out, I staggered away and looked back at what was left. A puddle of strange goo was all that remained of the suit that had saved my life.

  Next to it lay Xendar in his armor, unmoving. The armor radiated heat and I didn't want to get too close, but I had to know if he was okay. Even if I had no idea what to do if he wasn't.

  I looked around for something, anything, that might help. Our landing had ended in a forest, smashing a trail through the trees and leaving a path back the way we came. A path marked by smoldering fires and thickening smoke. I swallowed — alien planet or not, forest fires were nothing to take lightly. But there were too many of them for me to do anything about except pray they wouldn't spread.

  Glancing back at Xendar, I still couldn't tell if he was alive or dead. If there was any way to open his armor from the outside, it was a mystery to me. I took a deep breath, wincing as my chest hurt, and looked down at myself.

  It was almost humorous. Here I was, stranded on an alien planet, and I was wearing a damned princess dress. The wonderful gown had already straightened itself out, with not even a trace of a wrinkle left. I was torn between admiring the miracle fabric and being annoyed that it was now all I had to wear. With a sigh, I kicked off the shoes. They'd been bad enough on the ship, but there was no way on whatever the hell planet this was that I was going traipsing around the forest in heels.

  I turned and walked towards the edge of the forest and then paused. Should I stay with Xendar? Just walking off into the woods was crazy, I didn't even know if there was any civilization for a thousand miles. But I couldn't just stay here, either. What if Xendar needed help? What if he was dead? Either way, sitting around here was pointless.

  My mind shied away from that thought. I couldn't bear to think that he'd died saving me, but on the other hand, I couldn't deny the possibility either. And, I realized, this was my best chance to get back to Earth. Maybe I could find someone on Erdush who'd give me a ride home. There was no way I could keep fooling Xendar, it had been tough enough before, and I didn't really trust Rofain to keep up his end of the bargain anyway.

  I wasn't sure that it was a good idea, but between that and the need to get help for him, I made up my mind. Picking a direction away from the fires and the smoke, I pushed my way into the forest in search of a trail.

  The woods were surprisingly pretty, and silent. Probably because our crash landing had scared off anything living for miles, I realized. But there was clearly some life nearby — almost immediately, I stumbled on a path. A well-traveled one, too, though I wasn't sure if it was an animal trail or if people used it. How would I tell the difference, anyway, not knowing what the people here looked like?

  Whether it was an animal trail or not, it was still good news for me. My bare feet were really not used to walking through the undergrowth.

  I looked both ways, wishing I had a coin to flip. Either direction could lead to safety, and I had no way to choose. After a moment's indecision, I picked left and headed off as fast as I could.

  Around me the alien forest looked beautiful, but also oppressive. It took me a moment to realize why. The last time I'd been in a forest I'd been chased by an alien and kidnapped, and now I couldn't get the thought out of my mind.

  "This time I'm the one looking for the aliens," I said under my breath. "They aren't hunting me.

  I hope. I realized that I had no idea how safe I'd be with any aliens I found. Someone had tried to kill me and Xendar with that bomb, and it would make sense for them to try to finish the job. On the other hand, they couldn't possibly know where we were, could they? Xendar had picked this planet at random to show me, and only because I'd asked.

  But whoever lived here would have noticed the crash landing, wouldn't they? I couldn't imagine it going unnoticed, and started to wonder if I should have waited at the impact site instead of running off into the woods alone. I could still find my way back, I told myself. If it started to get dark before I found any sign of civilization, I'd try to go back.

  The pall of smoke that drifted through the trees reminded me of one good reason to keep moving away, though. The trees were damp enough that I hoped the fires would burn themselves out, but I didn't want to risk sitting right next to them and finding out that they didn't.

  I had no idea how long I'd been walking for, only that my feet hurt and my legs ached. If any of the jewelry I was wearing was a watch, I didn't know how to read it, but the sky was starting to darken and I began to think about turning back when I heard voices ahead of me. My heart leaped with hope and I hurried forwards, trying to see who was speaking.

  "Yes, this way, yes," someone was saying, a high, nasal voice. "Come, the crash site is here."

  A low hiss answered. "Too deep in the forest, how do we get a prize out?"

  "We carry it back, idiot," the first voice answered. "Hard work, you might have heard of it, yes?"

  Grumbles and laughs answered that, and I slowed down. This wasn't a small group and I was suddenly aware of being alone, unarmed, and helpless. Would this salvage party rescue me, or would they see me as easy prey? I had no idea how to guess.

  The path turned a corner and I carefully snuck into the undergrowth, making my way quietly t
hrough to peek out on the far side. That gave me a chance to watch the path unseen and to get an idea of who was approaching.

  The approaching aliens were a lot less human-looking than even Xendar. He, at least, had the right number of limbs! These creatures scuttled along on six spider-like legs, purple skin gleaming in the fading sunlight. Their faces were hard, with beaks rather than mouths, and they had two pairs of eyes each. The leader carried some kind of scanner, or at least that's what I thought it was, but following him were others with rifles drawn.

  I tried to control my shock and stay quiet, but either I made some noise or the scanner detected me somehow. The leader looked directly at me and opened his beak to make a strange hissing noise. The others scuttled forwards, unnervingly fast.

  Staying hidden wasn't going to work, and I doubted I could outrun them. Besides, where would I go? Steeling myself and putting on my bravest face, I drew myself up to my full height and stepped out of the undergrowth.

  The scuttlers stopped dead at the sight of me. One raised his weapon for a second before jerking it up as though shocked at his own reaction.

  "Hello," I said, breaking the silence and trying to be friendly. More of the aliens were coming up the path, and all of them stared at me. "Thank goodness I found you, I need some help. My ship crashed."

  "Yes, yes," the leader said, bobbing his head up and down. "Exploded in orbit. Much loot to be salvaged, everyone concentrates there. I'm the one smart enough to follow crash-trail, track you, find you."

  Some of the others stamped their feet in a kind of applause. I hoped it was a good sign.

  "You have to get me home," I said, hoping that they would help. "Please?"

  "Home, yes," the leader said, scuttling forward. His crew spread out and I had the unnerving feeling that I was being surrounded. "We take you home, Princess."

  I took a step back, not trusting him one bit. His eager nodding got quicker, and I heard more of his people in the woods to the side. Definitely being surrounded. Okay, they didn't seem as friendly as I'd hoped, and maybe appealing to their generosity wasn't the best way to go. I didn't exactly have much to trade for a ride to Earth, and these creatures struck me as mercenary types.